Views about the existence of God

In other words, Flew contends that the institution is essenti tout ensembley just as it take cares to be, and that the chronicle for it is to be gear up within the natural realm rather than in the supernatural. He says that the laws of matter and energy seem consummate(a)ly capable of explaining those things that film explanation, and that the things that they do not explain do not call for each explanation because they are mere "brute facts," which all logical chains of explanation are reduced to in the end. He maintains that the idea of total explanation is therefore incoherent, and lends all false plausibility to the argu handsts of the theists (Masterson, 1971, p. 120).

Flew maintains that the domain is self-sufficient and contains its own explanation within itself. It is itself ultimate. In a world viewed in this way, it is heart-to-heart that idol would be nothing more than a superfluity. many another(prenominal) theists have contended that the very orderliness of the universe is evidence of a divine creator. To this, Flew replies that we can never know what properties and tendencies (orderly or otherwise) the elements of the universe have in and of themselves as opposed to the way in which we observe them to be. He argues most forcefully that instead of good-natured in idle speculation about the unknowable, we would do break up to adopt the straightforward outlook that the order manifested by things is a natural and underived pr

Tillich's existential metaphysics are so far removed from the kind of irrefutable naturalism exemplified by Flew that he even denies that reason has any real place in a conceptualization of perfection. He makes a distinction between faith and knowledge, and between rationalness and revelation, such that knowledge and rationality are considered appropriate for matters of the finite,

Schilling, S. P. (1969). God in an age of atheism. New York, Abingdon Press.

So, if an act can be both free and caused, it should certainly be possible for an omnipotent God to predict and influence it or, in the case of an savage act, prevent it. It should therefore also be possible, according to Flew, for God to have made man so that he would always freely choose to do the right thing.

It seems that Flew and Tillich would be incapable(p) of sustaining a dialogue with one another since neither would coincide the other's methodology for establishing truth. Where Flew sees evil and freewill as problems for the theist, Tillich dismisses them as incumbent structures of finitude. Where Flew argues against the possibility of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God, Tillich asserts that it is wrong to think of God as a being at all, no matter how perfect or powerful. "When applied to God, superlatives become diminutives," he states (Tillich, 1958, p. 256). Where Flew sees naturalistic explanations of the universe as inherently more rational than theistic ones (Masterson, 1971, p. 118), Tillich shrugs take away rationality altogether and relies on subjective awareness of the unmeasured as the basis for his views. The divergence of the world views of these two men could hardly be more complete. The only thing they appear to agree upon is that God is an important and appropriate subject for estimable philosophical discussion. Beyond that, they don't even speak the same language.

Masterson, P. (1971). atheism and alienation. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

Flew states that if
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